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LANCE ITO

Lance
Ito once worked as a Los Angeles district attorney and, at the time of
the Simpson trial, was married to one of the LAPD's top officials.
Ito's background provoked speculation as to whether he could impartially
evaluate the internal actions of the LAPD.

A bit irreverant in his teenage years, Lance Ito used to decorate his
room with Playboy centerfolds and drove a hot Boss 302 Ford Mustang
with an air intake and chrome magnum wheels. The young Japanese-American
was also known to humorously celebrate Pearl Harbor Day by wearing an aviator's
helmet and cape and running through the campus hall's shouting "Banzai".

Appointed by California's governor to the bench in 1989, Ito was seen
as a wise political choice, inpart because of his Asian heriatge. Later,
however, Ito was widely criticized as a poor courtroom manager, allowing
far too many side-bars, stalls and delay tactics to exist in his court.

Ito seemed to enjoy press attention. Ito often invited celebrities into
his chambers for a visit, and even once privately told Larry King, of CNN's
Larry King Live, how he was going to rule on the his decision regarding
the admissibility of Simpson's prior domestice violence evidence. Fortunately,
King kept the disclosure to himself at the time. At the request of a friend,
Ito even gave a controversial interview during the trial.

Often willing to let in as much of the facts as possible, Ito did not
often exclude evidence. This was in part his reasoning behind his allowal
of the controversial taped interviews of Mark Fuhrman, as evidence of bias.